What are the benefits of an individual insurance policy in California?

by admin on June 29, 2009

In most cases, you will run into two types of policies – PPO’s (Preferred Provider Organizations) and HMO’s (Health Maintenance Organizations). PPO’s are the most popular. With this type of plan, you have a huge list of physicians and hospitals that you can use (for instance, the Blue Cross of California plan has 40,000 physicians and 330 hospitals). The best of these plans have no deductible and just a small co-payment when you go to the doctor. With most of these plans you are covered anywhere in the world. The second kind of plan, called an HMO, works differently. With this type of plan, you have to choose a Primary Care Physician, or PCP, out of a list from the HMO. You go to this PCP whenever you need medical services. If you need to see a specialist, then your PCP will refer you to someone in his or her medical group. Also, with an HMO, you have no deductibles and many services are paid at100%. So the advantage of an HMO is that the benefits are higher than the PPO, but the disadvantage is that you are much more restricted as to the doctors you can use.